EME6414 Web Log

I found a neat article that discusses flipping online classrooms with Web 2.0 technologies. The author discusses the creation of asynchronous workshops built around social environments. He also discusses how the use of certain tools can maximize student engagement and participation. The author used some communication and writing classes at Miami University of Ohio for his experiment. He incorporated many Google Apps and other Web 2.0 tools to help students create flexible learning strategies where they wrote collaboratively and in open public spaces on the web. I thought that this was a cool new way to look at flipped classrooms – there doesn’t have to be a physical meeting space for all flipped classrooms. This two-directional platform helped students mix up data from multiple sources and they created extremely rich user networks along the way. The web 2.0 tools that were used helped create and foster learner to instructor interactions, learner to content interactions, and learne...

I found this cool article that reviewed the use of wikis at the New York College of Podiatric Medicine. They have a pathology program there where they created several wikis for educational purposes. They use virtual microscopy where students scan microbial slides by various sections and then other learners can manipulate the images by zooming in, underlining things, adding arrows, labeling attributes, etc. Students group images by topic and are even able to edit other student’s slides. This is all preparing them to work as pathologists and I thought that it was a unique way to develop these professional skills. Students also participate in discussions on the wiki and share new ideas with each other.  The college discovered that this method of instruction produced an extremely detailed analysis of the subject matter. It was also beneficial because the students could access this archive at any time for knowledge management. The instructors reviewed student access and tracked...

The benefits of constructivism, discovery learning, connectivism, and social learning are absolutely phenomenal. I have quickly noticed that these Web 2.0 tools facilitate learning through all of these cognitive theories. I think that this class has highlighted the importance of collaboration and the benefits of cognitive conflicts (diversity of opinions) that come with social learning. It has been interesting to see how knowledge can be created, synthesized, and shared more effectively and efficiently using these Web 2.0 tools. I also feel like these tools are great for role-playing activities and can be used for online learning games. I believe that learning outside of the traditional ‘formal’ environment can breed more authentic experiences and that the students will have access to a more diverse audience when they use these tools. Over the last four weeks I have noticed that learners tend to take more control of their learning when using these web 2.0 tools and that there are ...

When beginning this project, I used Pinterest as a repository for the collection of resources. This made it easy for me collect resources on a ‘board’ for easy access and analysis. In total, I collected nine different sources of information - some content was better than others and there was also a lot of overlap between sources. I mined these nine sources for information that I thought would be beneficial for novice anglers going after Redfish for the first time. First, I wanted to begin the curation process with an instructional Youtube video that I personally created. The video teaches learners how to adequately identify a Redfish. I figured that this is the most important step in learning how to catch a Redfish, so this seemed like a natural starting point. In this video I explain: ·          How to identify the copper-bronze or red body color on the top half of the fish ·          How to ident...

The Reyman article touched on data mining and privacy. It seems like the law is not currently keeping up with technology and I personally think that this is going to cause some issues. No one seems to be able to know exactly where to draw the line. It is interesting to read about colleges and universities mining data in an effort to reduce violence on campus. Data can pretty much tell us anything that we want to know, but when does it become an overreaching invasion of privacy? How much control should companies and government entities be able to have over our privacy? Should we accept Zuckerberg’s claim that privacy is dead? I found the discussion on ‘the terms of use’ interesting. They truly are extremely difficult to read. The Carnegie Mellon University analysis found that it would take the average user 76 workdays per year of reading to sift through all of the policies of every website that they visited. To add to the complexity, these terms of use are constantly changing. The ...